MOSCOW: Thousands of Russians marched through central Moscow on Sunday in memory of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, two years after he was shot dead near the Kremlin. The assassination of the former deputy prime minister on February 27, 2015 was the highest-profile killing of a critic of President Vladimir Putin since the ex-KGB officer took charge in 2000. Five Chechen men from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus are currently on trial for carrying out a contract hit, but those who ordered the killing have not been brought to justice. “We came to pay tribute to the honesty and bravery of Boris Nemtsov,” pensioner Galina Zolina said, clutching a bunch of red carnations.
“We want to show the authorities that we haven’t forgotten.”
Charismatic Nemtsov — who went from Kremlin insider under Boris Yeltsin to one of Putin’s fiercest foes — was hit in the back by four fatal shots as he walked home across a bridge by the Kremlin with his girlfriend.
The march on Sunday was permitted by the authorities but not allowed to include a makeshift memorial officials have repeatedly sought to dismantle at the spot Nemtsov was killed.
Some 15,000 demonstrators, organisers and AFP estimated, surrounded by a heavy police presence waved Russian flags and posters criticising the Kremlin and Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, which Nemtsov had fiercely opposed right up to his death.
“The march can maybe get the attention of the authorities,” said unemployed biologist Alexei Kuznetsov.
“It might be able to influence the investigation, show that the case resonates in society even if the authorities try to ignore it.”
Last October five men — including a member of an elite interior ministry unit in Chechnya — went on trial in a military court in Moscow for carrying out the contract killing for 15 million rubles (currently $250,000).
But despite claims from officials that the case has been solved Nemtsov’s family and allies insist that the probe into his death has left the masterminds untouched.
Opposition activist released: Meanwhile, Russia released anti-Kremlin activist Ildar Dadin from a Siberian prison, freeing the first person jailed under new rules that made some forms of non-violent protest a criminal offence, his lawyer said on Sunday.
Dadin’s release had been expected after the Supreme Court had overturned his conviction on Wednesday.
He was originally sentenced in December 2015 to three years in jail — later reduced on appeal to two and a half years — for staging a series of peaceful, one-man protests against Kremlin rule. — AFP/Reuters
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